All spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and nature is a window into that wonder. – Richard Louv

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The Compassionate Hunter’s Guidebook

So, I recently preordered this book; while I am not a hunter myself (not yet, anyway), I still really want to read it, since a lot of the hides and bones I work with in my art and spirituality are from hunted animals, and because I’m very interested in showing people there’s a lot of room between NEVER KILL ANIMALS EVER and KILL ALL THE ANIMALS ALWAYS. Here’s the back cover blurb to entice you further:

The act of harvesting wild meat directly from the land demands that one enter a world of awareness, wildness, life and death that as a culture we have lost our connection to.

The Compassionate Hunter’s Guidebook is a guide for those that come to the act of hunting with pure intentions, motivated by a desire for healthy food that comes directly and humanely from the earth where they live. This practical guide suggests that hunting is not a ‘sport’ and the animals whose lives are taken are not ‘game’. It combines a deep, honest exploration of the ethics of killing with detailed practical instructions geared toward the beginning hunter, including:

A unique and comprehensive, fully-illustrated guide to the complexity, ethics, and spirit of the hunt, The Compassionate Hunter is a must-read for beginning and experienced hunters alike. It will appeal to anyone who wishes to delve more deeply into the complex, humbling and ultimately profound reality of our relationship with the food that nourishes us.

If you want to preorder your own copy from the author, here’s the relevant page. It’s also on Amazon and Powell’s for preorder, but I strongly recommend supporting authors as much as possible, and ordering from his site will get him the biggest percentage of the cover price.

There will, of course, be a review in the future once it’s out and I have my copy in my hot little hands.

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7 thoughts on “The Compassionate Hunter’s Guidebook”

If you want to read more, check out the book The Mindful Carnivore by Tovar Cerulli. I had been interested in learning how to hunt for food for several years, reading this book inspired me to take the next step.

Good to know that someone else still wants actual treeware books in their hot little hands. I’d love a trip to Portland to go to Powells….but the place always overwhelms me when I am short on time! (commenting, btw, from my secondary blog) I wish someone here hunted, I grew up a hunter’s daughter and I miss the game; specially since so much super market meat is so suspect these days.

I like to buy secondhand books as well. It was my understanding that Powell’s has both, but it was just really hard for me to figure out how to look for anything there. I think what I like about game is that it gives me the feeling that the animal that died to feed me has at least had a real life first.

In Russian we have a very fine distinction between “убить” which means “to kill” and “добыть” which has several meanings such as “to get,” “mine” as in mining stones etc., “extract,” and other synonyms, but the important definition is it means to kill an animal for the purpose of providing food for yourself and your family. I think it’s the most important distinction in hunting that many people disregard. You don’t kill for sport or to brag what a good shot you are – you kill recognizing that an animal is giving up its life to sustain yours.

That’s a really good distinction, and one I wish we had in American English in a less clumsy form than “I hunt for food” vs. “I like getting a deer with a big set of antlers but I also eat the meat” vs. “I just want the biggest antlers on my mantle”.

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